This post will likely get a lot bigger in the coming weeks. But, hopefully this will act as a deterrent to people looking to abuse the merit system. I'll figure out a way to format it better with the quotes, but I might just include the archive instead, and put it into some code bbcode.

Seems like this is starting to become a common occurrence in the last few days since the Jr member merit requirement was introduced. I have suspicions that users are purposely meriting posts that are considered spam, and will be removed, and they are anticipating its removal, and thus won't be noticeable by the public.

From now on when deleting a post which I consider spam, but has been merited I'll be listing them here. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, because quite frankly I don't have enough time to investigate the merit sender, and the user that got merited to determine whether its fishy or not. However, instead of deleting the reply, and allowing it to disappear into oblivion I'd prefer a list showing when a post has been merited, but then deleted when its obviously spam, and has no obvious reason why it should of been merited.

Again, not accusing anyone of anything here. I'm just not comfortable with deleting replies, which could well be merit abuse. I'd rather that be public. Unfortunately, a few replies have already been deleted the last few days which received merit.

op_ncn1 merited by tamara163
Archive

I was following the match thread on Reddit which admittedly is full of knee jerk reactions, and all kinds of bashing. From what I saw it was far from a boring game. Yeah, Liverpool are getting results even when playing sub par which is usually what champions are known for. Maybe, not Man City as they normally set the league alight. Wijnaldum apart from the recent game against Chelsea has been a stand out player for me, and feel he's a little underrated. He's very good at keeping the ball, and breaking up plays. 

Yeah, I would advise anyone to do this if you have the time. I tend to dedicate a certain amount of time now to giving merits when I know I have time to check for plagiarism or not strictly plagiarism, but something that has been repeated to death or has been discussed recently. A common trend among newbies is to back a few pages, and just regurgitate a good reply hoping for some merit.

If its providing a unfair advantage by enrolling all of their alt accounts when it specifically says in the bounty rules that it isn't allowed. Yes. As long as you have proof of this happening, and its pretty conclusive that they are abusing the system then they should be tagged.

Its kind of good in a way that its happening more. We get to easy the desperate newbies that want to become Jr members, and possibility identify those behind the scenes that are selling their merit. Seems like a lot of merit abuse going on in the altcoin section right now.

Yeah, but there's been no word whether that effects previously staked addresses or if you have to input an address again. I imagine existing accounts that have been lost would still need to be manually processed.

Maybe, we should build a wall?

The thing is, even "negative" members to the community have likely contributed in one way or a another. Unless, they have specifically broken the forum rules I see no reason to deleting members. Maybe, deleting accounts which haven't made any posts every so often. But, honestly I don't think storage space is a massive issue, and theymos isn't likely concerned about it. I guess the only negative of accounts with 0 posts is they have taken up a username that someone might want to have. Maybe, they could request that username in Meta though, and if there's any good reason for it maybe it will be granted.

Just watched the highlights of the Chelsea vs Liverpool game. I got the impression that it was a boring game from some of the comments made by supporters. Seemed to me like a decent game. Alison saving some crucial shots, and Liverpool really not taking their chances yet. I think if Salah shakes off this rust he's currently playing with, and the front 3 click before the Man City game then they'll get through these hard fixtures just fine. Sturridge has come back at the right time, and seems to be finding a bit of confidence. I know he missed an open goal mid week against Chelsea, but more than made up for it with that goal on the weekend. What a beauty.

Yeah, you would think a FUD campaign would be far more effective than someone who's known to have a few outlandish claims.

Yeah, but have they been proven to exist here on Bitcointalk? The thing is with these sorts of things its too difficult to determine whether the user actually believes what they are saying or if its completely fabricated because of the so called sponsorship from the state

It seems to me that he likes saying some outlandish things, and then enjoys watching other people debate over nonsense like it actually makes sense. Whether he's a troll or genuinely believes some of the things he comes out with. Most of his posts aren't worth the effort of reading unless your looking for a good laugh.

I'm almost certain that this happens with competing ICOs & altcoins.

Yeah, in my opinion its not necessary. What needs to happen is removal of the nonsense in the digital goods section, as well as getting users to condense their 4/5 threads into one. That would be a little more beneficial without having to add a whole new section.

I'd prefer something like this. I would far prefer trusting theymos than that of the NSA. I'm trying to find the previous discussion on this, but can't seem to find it. If anyone can send it over that would be appreciated. I think it was a discussion related to one of the DDOS attacks we had before on the forum.

Yeah, the old text captcha ones were easily outsourced, and several places had around a 99% solve rate. Never used one myself, but know that it was very easily bypassed for cheap as mprep hinted. The way that this particular "exploit" works is by downloading the audio, and then identifying what the audio is saying automatically. This could probably be outsourced, and I would bet there are services offering this. However, what I imagine a lot of them are doing is running through a automatic speech to text. I don't know how accurate these are though, and they may well be outsourcing them.

I was being purposely vague. However, there's a method of automatically downloading the sound files when requesting for a audio version rather than the images to help with usually impaired people. Generally, people write a Python script, automatically download it, and then can input it. I haven't tried this myself, but have seen it working on a test site from a friend of mine. He kept on having bots sign up to his website out of nowhere, and he found that this was the method they were using. Basically though, you're coding something that will be able to convert the webpage so you can capture the javascript, and then you are automatically downloading the sound file, and then run it through a text to speech program or something along those lines. Its obviously not going to be 100% accurate, but definitely somewhat automated. We've looked into options to prevent this, but it doesn't seem possible as Google doesn't allow disabling the audio option. Unless, we are missing something. 

Obviously, I haven't checked whether this can be done on Bitcointalk, because I haven't logged out in a few months. But, it shouldn't be any different to what I witnessed a few months ago.

There's a sneaky little way of bypassing (automating) Google's captcha, but requires coding a script, and using that. It's likely how all of these newbie accounts are being created automatically, and being used for malicious purposes. I'm not sure how we would combat this either as removing Google's image verification would result in a lot more spam than we already have. Unfortunately, the way to bypass the google image captcha is fairly well known, and seems like Google don't have any plans on changing it.

AFAIK there just isn't a better solution than the current implementation. I've seen people suggest implementing a captcha per post, but honestly they don't care, because they can automate it with a script. I'm sure theymos is well aware of this issue too, and requiring a captcha per post would affect legitimate users more than that of the spammers. Implementing a simpler approach wouldn't really benefit the forum. In regards to the Tor issue, and how long it can take sometimes. Then, we need to weigh up the pros, and cons, and see if we want usability over forum readability. If it were removed then it would certainly lead to mass amounts of spamming, but the current implementation isn't foolproof either. At least, I don't think so. I haven't had to log on in months, but I'm sure its exploitable like all the other captchas on other sites.

I managed to catch the Hazard goal in a pub we passed. I thought Alison could of probably saved that, and seemed to get fingertips on it. However, haven't seen Sturridges yet or any highlights. What's the verdict guys? Liverpool looking strong still or do you think they've got some work cut out for them?

Honestly, I was expecting them to beat Chelsea with a full squad.

We could be if we pooled all our money together for seasteading! Nah, for a lack of better word I used it. Someone who has all permissions to lock in that section or to that particular usergroup. So Global moderators or the moderator of that section.

I'm not sure. Only theymos knows the answer to that. I'm guessing there's not a whole lot of reports going on in the project development section. I can only think of one person who I regularly see reporting there. Although, bare in mind I can only see newbies that are reported there.

He can wait out his ban. You should read the rules regardless of the requirements of a bounty. Its not permanent so he can learn from this, and not do it again.

Press would just be spammed. We already have developers, and their PR team posting their news as separate posts everywhere already. Which I'm forever removing as its just plain spam. Most of the topics in Beginner & Help fit into other sections on the altcoin section. Otherwise, project development is probably a good idea. Maybe, renaming "Project Development" to "Bitcoin Project Development" might be an idea too. Just like we had to with the Bitcoin Technical Support section.

Also, with the exchanges. They tend to just spam their advertisement spam on altcoin/token announcements instead. Again, delete, and possible ban. Yet, that doesn't stop them as they just register another account to spam with. Just because we make a section which probably isn't needed anyway won't prevent them from spamming everywhere.

I don't necessarily agree with the proposed new sections. However, I do agree that broader sections need to be created to not only help the moderation, but the readability of the forum. Although, having said that a lot of the wrong section posts aren't reported, and therefore just go unnoticed most of the time. I don't seem to get a lot of newbie reports in the Beginners & Help section strangely enough. I think its just been allowed to spiral out of control.